"Momma! You Lied To Me!!!"

    Ugggg. Tomorrow is the big day: shots. Shots as in multiple, not as in one. I was expecting only to have to get my daughter the TdaP booster, but this morning I spent some time on the phone with staff from her doctor's office, and they kindly reminded me that my daughter needed some shot for meningitis and did I also want to get her starting on the HPV shot while I had her in there. Attack of the multiple shots!
    Well, of course I said yes. I want my daughter as protected against that biatch we call Mother Nature as possible. Every time we think we have her beat: she cooks up some nice new disease. But I am not looking forward to the triple attack of needles (sharp pointy things piercing my baby!!!) and I am really glad that I have the next three days off so that I can monitor her for any adverse reaction. And of course the fevers and not feeling well that always comes with vaccines.
   Which leads me to today's story: the last time my daughter got shots. She was five, and because of the February birthday, had not yet started school, but that was coming in the fall. She just needed the last of her shots. So I made an appointment with her doctor and we were on our way.
   My daughter by that time had learned to be very wary of the doctor's office. After a childhood of vaccines, how could a kid not be nervous? And although you can't tell now, after two years of major growth spurts that left her damn near as tall as me, and after a term in elementary school where she was constantly playing rough with the boys at recess, she was once a very dainty little girl. And she has these big brown eyes that melt you, so when she sat in the doctor's office waiting to be injected, which her bottom lip trembling, all the nurses and staff were trying to put her at ease.
   Of course, I knew what was coming. I had been doing shots with her since birth; due to the move from Florida to Washington, these nurses did not understand the horror that was about to descend. When my daughter started getting those shots, she didn't cry: she screamed. Blood-curdling, glass-shattering, ear-drum busting I am being murdered screams. Screams that had every single staff member and nurse and doctor busting into our little patent cubicle to see what the hell had went wrong and who was dying. Little girls: never underestimate the power of their vocal cords.
   Of course, all this time I am holding her and frantically saying,  "Shhh, shhhhh. These will make it so you don't get sick." But she was screaming so much that I didn't really think that she was paying me any attention.
   Several weeks later, unrelated to the vaccines, the whole household face a plague of stomach viruses. Every time someone would shake the virus off, they would only be well for a day or two before getting sick again. Liquid from both ends, and this is not fun when you are just as sick as your kid and the niece that you are babysitting. Threw up? Doesn't matter, the babies are throwing up too and you better get your ass up and take care of them. Shit yourself? Tough; so did the kiddos (two year old and a five year old) so get your ass in gear and clean them up and if you are lucky you'll have a few minutes break to take care of yourself. And we used up all of my gatorade supply, which is something I keep stocked for illness. My first defense against dehydration.
   So when we were all better, and we were shopping in the store, restocking my depleted gatorade supply, what comes out of my daughter's mouth? You probably guessed, she exclaims in the highly outraged and disillusioned tones that only a five year old girl can manage, "Momma! You lied to me! You said I wouldn't get sick if I got shots, and I got sick!"

I Thought The Nightmare Was Over....

I know that I have a coworker/friend who is going to read this title and think that this is another blog about those crappy-ass registers that I keep getting assigned too, but this is worse than that. This isn't about registers, or work at all. This is about (insert dramatic pause here) immunizations. As in my daughter finally needs her next immunizations, which when they told me, back when she was five, that she wouldn't need more until she was eleven, I was ecstatic. That was forever! But that day is now here, six short, short years later.
   I was always that mom when the time came for those nightmarish shots. You know, the mom who flinched as the needle came closer and closer to her precious baby. I always left the doctor's office just a little teary-eyed. I'm sure they loved me, but what can you say? They were sticking sharp, pointy objects into my little baby girl. It's a horrible ordeal, and then your baby feels rotten for a couple days after and you are checking temps and  making sure nothing funky is going on with the injection sites, because there are multiple sites. Usually when babies go to get their shots, they give them three or four at once. I'm not sure why they don't space them out a little? Wouldn't that make recovery easier? But then maybe that just prolongs the misery? Who knows. All I know is that I don't like watching someone stick sharp, pointy objects into my daughter.
   But I am not one of those parents who are against immunizations. They protect your child. I had another mom ask me once why I let my daughter be tortured (tortured? That seems extreme, even to teary-eyed me) and said she was taking her child to a chicken pox party, where they deliberately expose their kids to chicken pox. Okay, folks, I don't like to pull up research, so I am going to let you look this up and find the info on your own, but statistically speaking, more children have died from chicken pox than from the vaccine for chicken pox. And what would we do without that polio vaccine? This doesn't seem reasonable to me. I'm sorry if you are one of the parents that agree with this, because I just can't. Sure, I do agree that they should continue to do research on these vaccines, and make them as safe as possible, but to not give them at all?

She used to have a Florida one, but they switched the card when we moved up here.

   Nevertheless, I am not looking forward to my daughter getting this TdaP booster. She is older now, so hopefully she will just be hugely embarrassed by her mother breaking down, and not break down herself. And I put off the appointment as long as possible, but I had to make the call today. Time is running out. She needs this booster by the time school starts, and for the last two weeks of August, we are going to be in Yellowstone, so I need to get this shot done.
   So we have an appointment Tuesday to see the doctor. Since I am taking her to a new doctor, they have to examine her first, and they may be able to give her the shot then, or I might have to make another appointment for that. I hope we can do the booster shot then and just get the nightmare over with, but who knows? But Tuesday morning, you all know what I will be doing. I dread Tuesday; I'm not ready!!! My daughter is going to be fine, and is rolling her eyes at me as I type, but I:
I feel the need to curl into a fetal position.